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Saturday, October 21, 2006

Pumpkin bread for a friend...

Back when we first moved to Phoenix, Jeff immediately made friends with the admin for their team, Trish. She eventually moved out of the country with her husband and just recently came back and bought a house here in the states. She's living with some family in the interim that happen to be just a short drive away, so we decided to try and meet for lunch. We decided we wanted to make something to bring to her, something fallish, so we opted for a pumpkin bread!

This recipe, Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Bread, is put together cake-style, rather than a quickbread, as the butter is creamed with sugar instead of adding the sugar to the dry ingredients and adding oil or melted butter. For spices, I added Vietnamese cinnamon, ginger, allspice and fresh grated nutmeg - but you could simplify and use a pre-made pumpkin pie spice (use about a tablespoon). Buttermilk is the liquid of choice, but you could use a yogurt if you didn't happen to have some on hand already. Toasted chopped walnuts and sweet dried cranberries are folded in and once the batter is scooped into the pan, I scattered the top with a shower of vanilla sugar. I keep a separate tub of sugar that I use to place spent vanilla bean pods in and just keep replenishing with more sugar when I use it. The sugar takes on a pleasant, but light vanilla scent and is wonderful to sprinkle on muffins or to add another depth of flavor to baked goods. The buttermilk keeps the bread tender and lends a mild twang. Besides adding flavor, the mashed pumpkin keeps the loaf plenty moist as well. I would like to try this recipe with some fresh cranberries and turn this into a muffin next time.